Praedicator

Verba

Friday, September 25, 2015 - Friday in the 25th Week in Ordinary Time

[Hag 2:1-9 and Luke 9:18-22]

Greater will be the future glory of this house than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give you peace, says the Lord of hosts. [Haggai]

Haggai the prophet understood the importance of a physical symbol of faith that could re-unite the returning exiles from Babylon. History shows however that the peace to be brought by building a new temple would not be lasting. No empire or civilization has been able to claim possession of time. When Jesus finally got to Jerusalem with his disciples who were gawking at the temple, recently renovated by Herod the Great, he told them it would soon be reduced to rubble, which they found hard to believe!

At present, Pope Francis is in Washington, D.C., among all those monumental buildings that stand as symbols of the American experience of democracy. It would be difficult to imagine them reduced to rubble, but it could happen. I was in Washington, D. C., when an earthquake occurred that shut down the Washington Monument for a couple of years! The terrible events of 9/11 when terrorists crashed a civilian aircraft into the Pentagon showed just how vulnerable our symbols can be. Rome is prone to earthquakes and the great Franciscan citadels of Assisi were seriously damaged in an earthquake some years ago.

The lessons of the temple in Jerusalem, the pyramids in Egypt, the Aztec and Inca temples, the Roman ruins around the Mediterranean are all there for us to know that our faith is not in stone and magnificent space. We may feel peace there, but we have that peace within us. If that building starts to shake, we will need that peace when we view the rubble later on! AMEN